LITMIR.BIZ

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I know. Danny is a wonderful boy.” She tried not to notice that Caleb had slipped his arm around her waist or that her traitorous body tingled with excitement. Oh, dear God, all he had to do was touch her and she went weak in the knees.

      And weak in the head, too! she reprimanded herself. Get a grip, girl. Don’t let him do this to you. Hell, don’t do it to yourself. You know better.

      “Caleb, I appreciate your being so nice to Danny and accepting his invitation to dinner and—” She glanced over her shoulder and the moment he smiled at her, the bottom dropped out of her stomach. “And signing autographs for him and his friends, but. . .well, I just don’t want Danny to think. . .to assume—”

      Caleb pulled her to the opposite end of the hall, near the living room, then gently eased her up against the wall. His big body hovered over hers. She swallowed hard.

      “You don’t want Danny to think—to assume—what?” Caleb asked.

      “He lost his father five years ago and even though Mike and he are pals, what Danny wants more than anything is a dad of his own.” She hesitated momentarily, allowing Caleb to absorb her words and hopefully come to the right conclusion.

      “You think Danny might see me as a father figure? Is that what’s got you so worried? You don’t want Danny getting too close to me and maybe trying to emulate me? You really don’t approve of me, do you, Sheila?”

      Oh, great! Hunky-dory great! Typical man, he’d misunderstood.

      “I don’t approve or disapprove of you. That’s not what I was trying to say.”

      “Then maybe you’d better spell it out for me.”

      “All right.” She squared her shoulders and glared directly into his dark brown eyes. “I don’t want you hanging around so much that Danny becomes too attached to you, that he starts thinking of you as a substitute dad. Somebody who’ll be in his life for the long haul. If he becomes too fond of you, it’ll break his heart when you leave Crooked Oak.”

      Caleb took a step backward, putting a couple of feet between them and allowing Sheila to move into the living room. He stood there in the hallway and thought about what she’d just told him. If for one minute he’d ever really thought about Danny’s situation, he would have realized the danger in spending too much time with the kid. He’d been a fatherless boy himself once. And although his cold, stern grandfather had tried to be a supportive parent, Gramps hadn’t been his real father. Hell, he couldn’t even remember what his own father looked like. Jake and Hank had been old enough to retain memories of their parents, but he’d been a toddler and Tallie an infant when they’d lost their folks.

      Danny barreled out of his bedroom and down the hall, screeching to a halt right in front of Caleb. “The guys will be over in a few minutes. Tanner’s dad is going to bring them. Mr. Finch is dying to meet you.”

      Caleb ruffled Danny’s wavy black hair and grinned. The last thing on earth he wanted to do was hurt this boy, to disappoint him in any way. Strange thing was, that for some reason he could see himself in Sheila’s son. Danny was tall and lanky—all arms and legs—the way he’d been as a kid. And the boy loved baseball with a passion that bordered on obsession, just as he did. And Danny was a fatherless boy in need of a role model. He’d been there himself and had experienced every aspect of being the only kid on the team without a dad. His grandfather had been an old man with a bad heart, and although he’d come to all the games, he’d never coached or managed one of Caleb’s Little League teams the way so many fathers did. Caleb could remember being Danny’s age and promising himself that when he had a son, he’d coach the boy’s team.

      “Danny, you know that I’m going to be in Crooked Oak for just a few months, don’t you? I’m not moving back here permanently. Once I sort out what to do with my life now that my major league career is over, I’ll be leaving.”

      Danny stared at Caleb with wide, expressive blue eyes identical to his mother’s. “Yeah, sure. I know.”

      Caleb glanced over Danny’s shoulder, into the living room, directing his gaze at Sheila. She smiled weakly and nodded her head.

      “I want us to be friends and. . . well, after I leave town, I’ll keep in touch. But. . .I, er. . .”

      Danny narrowed his eyes, his stare questioning Caleb. “Me and Caleb Bishop friends. Hey, I like the sound of that.”

      Caleb gripped Danny’s shoulder. “I like the sound of that, too.”

      He thought their little talk had gone well, that he’d set the record straight and eased Sheila’s mind. Danny was a bright kid. He understood that Caleb wouldn’t be a permanent fixture in his life. Maybe now, Sheila would stop worrying.

      He could be Danny’s friend without giving the boy any false hopes about him becoming his substitute father, couldn’t he? And he and Sheila could renew their old friendship and temporarily ease each other’s loneliness, without any permanent ties.

      

      Caleb waited on the front porch while Sheila checked to make sure Danny was asleep. She had put her son to bed three times since his two young buddies had left, and each time he’d thought of just one more thing to tell Caleb.

      “This is the last thing, I promise, Mom,” the boy had said ten minutes ago. “Caleb, would you come and watch us practice tomorrow? We’ll be over behind the grammar school, in Old Man Pickens’s field. That’s where the Bulldogs always practice.”

      “Danny!” Sheila had scolded.

      “I might drop by for a few minutes,” Caleb had replied. “But don’t mention it to any of the other guys just in case I don’t make it.”

      Sheila swung open the front door and joined Caleb on the porch.

      “He’s down for the count,” she said. “He’s asleep and this time he isn’t faking it.”

      Caleb sat in the porch swing. He knew he should get in his car and drive home instead of lingering, trying to prolong the evening. He dreaded going back to the old homestead alone. He was a man accustomed to company, to being around teammates and fans and—until this past year when he’d been recuperating from the accident—he’d seldom been without a female companion.

      “I hope you don’t mind that I told Danny I might stop by his practice tomorrow.”

      She hesitated a couple of seconds before she replied, “No, I don’t mind. He would have been terribly disappointed if you’d said no. I think he’d already told Devin and Tanner that he was going to ask you to come by.”

      “I promise to play it cool with him,” Caleb said. “He’s a pretty smart boy. He understands that my stay in Crooked Oak is only temporary.”

      Feeling a sudden chill at his words, Sheila rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “It’s cool, isn’t it, for springtime?”

      “Come sit by me and I’ll warm you up,” he said, his tone teasing.

      He’d like to warm her up, melt that frosty exterior and see just how hot Sheila could get He remembered a passionate young girl who had come alive in his arms. Was that fire and passion still alive in her, just waiting to be unleashed? She had told him there was no one special in her life, so that had to mean she was celibate because unless Sheila had changed a great deal, she’d never indulge in casual sex.

      “Aren’t you leaving?” she asked. “It’s ten-thirty. Past my bedtime. We’re early risers around here.”

      He patted the wood slat bottom of the swing. “Come sit with me before I go home. It’s a beautiful spring night. Stars and moon and fresh country air.”

      “You don’t want to go home, do you?”

      “What?”

      “I said, you don’t want to go home. You don’t want to be alone.”

      “Smart lady.”

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